To me, there are two giant, gaping problems with the Daily Show Correspondent program. The first of which is that it seems increasingly noticeable to me that I only find the correspondents funny when they go out into the field and make a report. Getting real people into a corner and making them look like complete idiots is hilarious TV for me. However, I feel that the second they come back into the studio and sit at the table with Jon, they somehow become really unfunny. Even Jessica Williams (my new favorite) doesn’t seem to flurish in that setting. Surprisingly, though, this isn’t the case when they get in front of the green screen. I’ve seen some hilarious moments on the green screen, especially when they get “meta” about the fact that they’re actually just standing 20 feet from Jon. I don’t now what sitting at the table changes about their funniness.
Secondly, there are a couple of correspondents in my mind who just honestly suck ass. Most of them can make something work most of the time and one or two can have me laughing out loud during their dedicated segments (most notably Jason Jones, Asif Manvi and Jessica Williams), but there are a couple (Read: Samantha Bee) who are just insanely unfunny. To be honest, I think Bee might even be a comedy vacuum. The parody of Zero Dark Thirty she did about the Veterans Claim Crisis was about the most unfunny thing I’ve seen on the Daily Show in a while. - YouTube
What do you guys think? Am I completely off base? Has Samantha done something half-funny recently?
I’m the opposite, I hate their field work 90% of the time. It almost always feels dickish and mean. I know to a certain degree that in a lot of cases all the people signed release forms and kind of knew what they were in for, but they’re just so profoundly obnoxious. I recall one in 2008 where they were being complete twats at the DNC/RNC and just annoying everyone around them.
They’re generally the funniest when they just let the people they’re mocking speak for themselves. I generally don’t consider their interviews of senators, or more editorial content (like the “crisis in dairyland” teacher thing) as part of their “field work”. I’m more talking about when they’re interviewing random people on the street or at a location.
Samantha Bee is probably my absolute favorite correspondent. I like them all though, honestly. Wyatt was my least favorite when he was on the show but even he was pretty good.
Yeah, Samantha Bee hate is not uncommon on this board and I don’t understand it. I so want to service that woman.
I did think she was at her best years ago when she was on more frequently. Over the past couple years she’s been on less frequently and I feel like she’s a bit out of the swing of things- but only in a “past her prime” kind of a way, not in a “she’s no good anymore” kind of a way. I still like her a lot. I like her take on things and think she’s really funny.
I do agree that the desk segments don’t go too well- especially when Jon has more than one at the desk for a panel discussion. The reason, I think, is that none of them are good with scripted dialog (Jon included, he’s definitely part of the problem). The green screen stuff feels like there is a little more freedom for improv. At the desk, it feels scripted and none of them are good enough actors to sell the listening part of the interaction. They’re waiting for their line, knowing Jon’s lines (and vice versa), and they just don’t sell the idea that this is a fresh conversation, that they’re in the moment hearing their interlocutor’s words for the first time. Thus, the comic timing is completely ruined.
Actually, I think Jones is the best at selling it as a real conversation in these bits but his humor is not my favorite of the correspondents (but, I kinda like him).
John Hodgman, is he still on the show? His desk panel moments with Stewart are easily the best and some of the funniest of the show.
And I absolutely agree with the comic timing thing. You can honestly just see it on their faces that they are just waiting to say their line and the whole thing comes off as forced and unfunny, most of the time.
You also get to contrast them immediately with the genuinely very good and very genuine interviews Stewart does with his real guests of the show, so it REALLY stands out that the panelist “discussions” are scripted and often very badly so.
Well, my analysis was not meant to include the less frequent correspondents who only do desk work. The ones who only do desk work are clearly playing their strengths in that format and they’re always funny: John Hodgman, Larry Wilmore, Kristen Schaal, and of course Lewis Black.
ETA: Is there any reason to believe that John Hodgman, in real life, is especially more wealthy than the typical low exposure television personality? Is it all just schtick, or is it schtick that has some foundation in his real life?
I like most of the correspondents. The acting on the desk bits is a little shaky (presumably because its…well…a daily show and so they only have one rehearsal, and Asif Mahdvi is the only one coming from an acting background), but I don’t find it so bad that it detracts much from the jokes.
Even Colbert, whose been doing the schtick for more then a decade isn’t really that good at the acting part of it.
I agree with the OP. I think the field stuff is best part of the show. I also am a huge fan of Ali G. The whole thing with interacting with real people works for me. It seems they are doing more desk stuff recently, and I think it’s because they are lazy.
And Sam Bee gots to go. Now they have another girl for whom things work out, so they can let her go without being sexist.
I’m the opposite. When I watch the show, I generally only watch the in-studio sections. I usually like the panel discussions but just find the field stuff more uncomfortable and embarrassing than funny, I guess.
Samantha Bee is far from my favorite, but she still makes me laugh sometimes.
Didn’t we do a poll not that long ago on favorite TDS correspondents? I’m another non-fan of Sam Bee - often it seems like she’s trying too hard and it comes across as abrasive rather than funny (I have the same view of her other half, Jason Jones, although occasionally he makes it work for him). Huge fan of Larry Wilmore and I miss Rob Riggle, the big grinning galoot.
As for fieldwork, fake-journalism always puts me on edge. If you get a subject who will say unintentionally funny things on camera, you’re golden. If you’re talking to a sensible person and therefore have to act up to get a reaction out of them, you’re just being an asshole. And I imagine that even if you could know which one you were talking to ahead of time there aren’t enough of the first category to fill the time they need to fill.
I don’t understand the Sam Bee hate. I was actually really sad when she started being on the show less and less, and am soooooOOOooo excited when I see her get a segment.
Th show peaked with Carell and Colbert. Even Stevphen was the best correspondent bit the show ever had.
Anyone remember Frank Decaro’s movie review segment? Even though he only had one joke (I’m gay.) with many variations, it was a fun bit.
Wyatt Cenac does come up with a killer adlib now and then. When we was on the greenscreen at some GOP party, he quipped, “Mmm! This martini is drier than Harriet Tubman’s vagina!” I fell off the couch laughing, and Stewart was floored and rebounded with a joke about how that wasn’t the line from rehearsal.
If I were Jessica Williams, I would demand my own dressing room after an incident like this. If anyone is going to fuck a dead guy, they should do it in private.
